“What, already!” replied the unhappy wretch to whom these words were addressed, and stretching his muscular limbs, he added, “what a pity, I was so sound asleep!”
He rose, shook the bits of straw from his hair and beard, and putting on the remains of an old hat, which had once been white, calmly said, “well, I am ready—the sooner it is over the better.”
The executioner, who was waiting with one of his assistants in the outer vestibule of the prison, threw an oblique glance upon the prisoner, then, looking at his watch, exclaimed, “come, make haste! we are already after our time—the market is nearly over.”
“Oh, but you have not far to go,” replied the turnkey; then addressing the prisoner—“old one,” said he, “it will soon be over, and the weather is fine. Here, take this, it will keep up your spirits.” And he handed him a glass of brandy, which the prisoner drank off with evident delight.
“Thanks, good master,” he replied, returning the glass to the good natured turnkey, “I shall never forget your kindness.”
“Well, well,” said the latter, “that is settled. Never mind what I do for you, man—it is little enough, God knows—only behave well—dost hear?”
The executioner’s man drew from his pocket a long and strong cord, with a slip knot at the end, and tightly tied the hands of the convict, who calmly looked at him, and said not a word. The executioner himself carried a board, on which was a sort of notice, partly printed and partly written; and all three proceeded slowly towards the market place, where the prisoner was to be placed in the pillory for one hour, and exposed to the gibes and taunts of an almost ferocious populace.
From the scaffold to which he was fastened, the old mendicant cast a look of pity upon the crowd, and said—
“Well, and what are you looking at? am I an object of such intense curiosity? But you are right; look at me well, for you shall never more behold me. I shall not return from the place to which they are going to take me—not that I fear a dungeon, for I have been too long accustomed to have no other bed than the cold ground. No, I shall return hither no more; and I should have done well had I not returned this time. But I could not help it. I was born here, though I never told any body so; and I love the spot where I first drew breath. ’Tis natural enough; yet why should I love it? I never knew either home or parents—the latter left me, when an infant, upon the steps of the church of St. Louis.”
Here the sun-burnt countenance of the old mendicant assumed an expression of bitterness.